Happy Birthday Messi: Master and the Apprentice

Many are calling him the greatest player of all time and he’s only just turned 28. While Lionel Messi rightfully claims football’s brightest spotlight today, the Argentine was waiting in the wings at the Nou Camp while Ronaldinho held centre stage. But ten years ago, he announced himself to the watching world.

May 1, 2005: Barcelona led Albacete 1-0 at home. Samuel Eto’o had given way to a diminutive wavy-haired 17-year-old.

Ronaldinho took possession close to the touchline. With his trademark pony-tail shaking wildly as he drew six Albacete players, the Brazilian masterfully stroked an outrageous flick above the defence into the path of Messi. The substitute exquisitely chipped goalkeeper Raúl Valbuena only for the referee to incorrectly disallow the score. Messi looked like a bewildered child but his fellow South-American smiled at the magic he’d witnessed and helped to weave.

Just a minute later, Ronaldinho received the football on the opposite flank and perfected an almost identical pass for Messi to arch a super finish to score his first goal on the way to becoming arguably the greatest player the game has known.

It was a changing of the guard in some ways. Ronaldinho was mid-way through his footballing journey across some of Europe’s greatest cities, Paris, Barcelona, and Milan. Messi was opening the first page on the story that would re-define the history books. Before the Argentine’s twinkle toes lit up La Liga, it was the samba soles of the toothed one who captivated the Camp Nou.

Messi is rightly revered for the childish abandon with which he plays the game. He may have broken the mould but it was Ronaldinho who cast it. In the blaugrana shirt, the Brazilian danced with a football as if he were a barefoot kid in the city of Port Alegre. Twice named the world’s best player, in 2004 and 2005, the plaudits and acclaim of the tens of thousands in the Catalan cathedral barely fazed him. Each flick, dribble, or pass, whether executed or rarely mis-hit, was greeted with a grin while opponents were helped to their feet, offered a handshake, and one of the greatest exponents of the joga bonito carried on.

Barcelona fans would scarcely believe the man who took up Ronaldinho’s crown would go on to such mesmerising heights. The heir apparent to countryman Diego Armando Maradona, Messi’s mesmerising stats continue to amaze us. He has an astonishing 403 goals in 474 competitive club appearances with 32 career hat-tricks. With Ronaldinho watching on in his homeland, it would have been a fitting setting for his successor to become a World Cup-winning captain in 2014. It wasn’t to be as Germany triumphed but at 28-years-old, Lionel Messi may yet get that chance.